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Monday, February 2, 2009

Is Marijuana the Breakfast of Champions?

Michael Phelps smokes dope. So what? The International Olympics Committee was so shocked to find out that a young American male smokes dope that they forced him to publicly apologize. Will they do the same if they find out that he drinks beer? (If he does). Would the IOC demand that Phelps issue a public apology if someone took his photo while he was eating a cheeseburger and fries? More people die from fast food and junk food including cheeseburgers and fries than marijuana. (See below: 365,000 Americans die every year from poor diet and lack of exercise).What if someone sees the young athlete taking an aspirin? Public flogging, or strip him of his medals? (See footnote 7 at bottom of this post:(1996): "Each year, use of NSAIDs (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) accounts for an estimated 7,600 deaths and 76,000 hospitalizations in the United States." (NSAIDs include aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, diclofenac, ketoprofen, and tiaprofenic acid.)

What if Michael Phelps smoked marijuana in Amsterdam, or some place where it's legal, or if it's just a misdemeanor? Would the IOC demand a public apology from some young athlete who drove too fast and got a speeding ticket? What if the fine for the ticket was more than the fine for smoking dope? How does the IOC decide that this "offense" is so horrendous that a public flogging is necessary, but other offenses (like getting drunk out of their minds) are absolutely fine.

But let's look at the record of this loady, slacker, druggy, Michael Fred Phelps. At the age of 23, he has won 14 Olympic gold medals, the most of any Olympian. He has won seven world records in swimming. I think Phelps should have worn a roach clip around his neck when he got the gold. Phelps has won 16 Olympic medals in all,when including the ones from Athens in 2004. Not too shabby for a dope-smoker.

Come to think of it, I don't think I ever heard of even one person dying from smoking a joint. Or even doing so over some period of time.

Lots of people die from alcohol. So why isn't that illegal? Is it because the liquor companies pay so many bribes to our politicians? In fact, is it the alcohol industry, and their lobbyists, giving enormous bribes to our politicians, that keeps marijuana illegal?

Some of the benefits of marijuana include that one magical quality that so many football fans are whining about this morning: why doesn't someone invent a cure for the hangover? Well marijuana does not really "cure" the hangover that is caused by alcohol. But it also doesn't cause hangovers like alcohol does. Which is likely doing more harm to people? If somebody drinks too much alcohol, their body reacts as if they have been poisoned, or infected with some terrible stomach flu. They wake up with a headache, nausea, sometimes they will vomit, their whole body aches, they can't think straight, it's like there's a film between them and the rest of the world, they're grouchy, irritable (their body is telling them to drink more alcohol to "cure" the hangover). But guess what? A person could smoke marijuana during a football game, go to bed, wake up the next morning with no hangover at all. Instead of nausea, marijuana often is a spur to a person's appetite, which is one of the reasons people who are undergoing chemotherapy may benefit from smoking dope.

In contrast, of course, with alcohol. How many people die of alcoholism and related illnesses every year? How many car wrecks, divorces, shootings, how many incidents of domestic violence are caused by excessive use of alcohol?

The U.S. Center for Disease Control did a study in 2001 to determine the number of alcohol-related deaths in the U.S., and years of lost potential life, that resulted from excessive alcohol use. http://www.cdc.gov/MMWR/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5337a2.htm (What about after 2001? No studies. Was 2001 the last year that the CDC was actually run by scientists and doctors, because Bush fired everyone in any federal agency of the government with a brain and replaced them with "Faith-Based" stenographers?) 2001 was the most recent study I could find. In 2001, the CDC reported that excessive alcohol use is the third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S. and was associated with "multiple adverse health consequences, including liver cirrhosis, various cancers, unintentional injuries, and violence." Not to mention the potential public humiliation of having someone tape your drunken sex with a hamburger and sell it to national TV. The CDC found approximately 76,000 alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. in 2001, and 2.3 million years of potential life lost (because so many of the people who died of alcohol-related deaths were relatively young people). In fairness, the CDC also found that 11 lives were saved because of excessive alcohol use because it reduces the risk of death from cholelithiasis (i.e., gall bladder disease). Maybe Bush actually put some liquor industry people in charge of this study: one reason to live your life as a drunk, is if you have a particular high risk of gall bladder disease.

I won't even talk about cigarettes and the number of people who die from them every year. How much money has the tobacco industry paid to lobbyists and PR firms to try to convince the public that smoking doesn't really hurt you?http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/publications/aag/osh.htm

According to the CDC, about 440,000 Americans die every year from smoking or exposure to smoking, and an almost 9 million people very year develop a serious illness relating to smoking. 43 million Americans still smoke cigarettes. The medical costs from tobacco smoking-related illnesses in the U.S. is approximately $96 billion per year.I looked for National Institute of Health or CDC studies and reports on the number of Americans who die from smoking marijuana every year. Couldn't find anything on that topic. Is it possible that nobody ever died from smoking dope? Maybe we need a national institute of health/CDC joint study and report on that: Nation's Scientific and Medical Experts Prove: Marijuana Never Hurt Anybody. Wouldn't that be funny. Most of the references I found reported that smoking Marijuana caused Zero, None, No deaths per year in the United States. So why is the IOC so absurd about a young American athlete smoking dope? (Psssst: I'll bet he's not the only one). Do the televised Olympics get lots of liquor sponsorship? Lots of TV commercials purchased by the beer sellers, the scotch and wine and vodka companies that want to convince people that drinking alcohol will make them good athletes? Just like they used to claim that smoking cigarettes would make you sexy? Is the IOC just doing this public hysteria about one lousy joint because they're afraid that the legal drug pushers represented by the alcohol industry might withdraw their sponsorship if the athletes admitted that they don't really like to drink alcohol -- they'd rather smoke dope?

This doesn't mean I think people should use drugs or alcohol. I don't. I think it's a bad idea all around. But I just think that if someone had the choice between drinking alcohol or smoking marijuana, the marijuana seems to have fewer negative health effects. And it's too bad that our politicians (and even the Olympics) are so corrupted by the bribes (sponsorship) paid by the alcohol industry that they refuse to tell the public the truth, change the laws to reflect the fact that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol and cheeseburgers, and let the public make their own decisions.

And consider this: maybe smoking dope makes Phelps a better athlete. Is it possible that smoking dope clears his mind, helps him to relax and focus, is a secret performance enhancer? Don't ever tell the liquor industry.

1. (2000)"The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435,000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85,000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75,000), toxic agents (55,000), motor vehicle crashes (43,000), incidents involving firearms (29,000), sexual behaviors (20,000), and illicit use of drugs (17,000)."(Note: According to a correction published by the Journal on Jan. 19, 2005, "On page 1240, in Table 2, '400,000 (16.6)' deaths for 'poor diet and physical inactivity' in 2000 should be '365,000 (15.2).' A dagger symbol should be added to 'alcohol consumption' in the body of the table and a dagger footnote should be added with 'in 1990 data, deaths from alcohol-related crashes are included in alcohol consumption deaths, but not in motor vehicle deaths. In 2000 data, 16,653 deaths from alcohol-related crashes are included in both alcohol consumption and motor vehicle death categories." Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, Jan. 19, 2005, Vol. 293, No. 3, p. 298.)Source: Mokdad, Ali H., PhD, James S. Marks, MD, MPH, Donna F. Stroup, PhD, MSc, Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, "Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000," Journal of the American Medical Association, March 10, 2004, Vol. 291, No. 10, pp. 1238, 1241.

2. (2000) "Illicit drug use is associated with suicide, homicide, motor-vehicle injury, HIV infection, pneumonia, violence, mental illness, and hepatitis. An estimated 3 million individuals in the United States have serious drug problems. Several studies have reported an undercount of the number of deaths attributed to drugs by vital statistics; however, improved medical treatments have reduced mortality from many diseases associated with illicit drug use. In keeping with the report by McGinnis and Foege, we included deaths caused indirectly by illicit drug use in this category. We used attributable fractions to compute the number of deaths due to illicit drug use. Overall, we estimate that illicit drug use resulted in approximately 17000 deaths in 2000, a reduction of 3000 deaths from the 1990 report."Source: Mokdad, Ali H., PhD, James S. Marks, MD, MPH, Donna F. Stroup, PhD, MSc, Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, "Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000," Journal of the American Medical Association, March 10, 2004, Vol. 291, No. 10, p. 1242.

3. (2003) The US Centers for Disease Control reports that in 2003, there were a total of 31,484 deaths from suicide in the US.Source: Hoyert, Donna L., PhD, Heron, Melonie P., PhD, Murphy, Sherry L., BS, Kung, Hsiang-Ching, PhD; Division of Vital Statistics, "Deaths: Final Data for 2003," National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 54, No. 13 (Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, April 19, 2006), p. 5, Table C.

5. (2003)"In 2003, a total of 28,723 persons died of drug-induced causes in the United States (Tables 21 and 22). The category 'drug-induced causes' includes not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of drugs (legal and illegal use), but also poisoning from medically prescribed and other drugs. It excludes unintentional injuries, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to drug use. Also excluded are newborn deaths due to mother's drug use."Source: Hoyert, Donna L., PhD, Heron, Melonie P., PhD, Murphy, Sherry L., BS, Kung, Hsiang-Ching, PhD; Division of Vital Statistics, "Deaths: Final Data for 2003," National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 54, No. 13 (Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, April 19, 2006), p. 10.

6. (2003)"In 2003, a total of 20,687 persons died of alcohol-induced causes in the United States (Tables 23 and 24). The category 'alcohol-induced causes' includes not only deaths from dependent and nondependent use of alcohol, but also accidental poisoning by alcohol. It excludes unintentional injuries, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to alcohol use as well as deaths due to fetal alcohol syndrome."Source: Hoyert, Donna L., PhD, Heron, Melonie P., PhD, Murphy, Sherry L., BS, Kung, Hsiang-Ching, PhD; Division of Vital Statistics, "Deaths: Final Data for 2003," National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 54, No. 13 (Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, April 19, 2006), p. 10.

8. (Average 1982-1998): According to Canadian researchers, approximately 32,000 hospitalized patients (and possibly as many as 106,000) in the USA die each year because of adverse reactions to their prescribed medications.Source: AMA, 1998), Nov. 25, 1998, Vol. 280, No. 20, from the web at http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v280n20/ffull/jlt1125-1.html, last accessed Feb. 12, 2001.

9. An exhaustive search of the literature finds no credible reports of deaths induced by marijuana. The US Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) records instances of drug mentions in medical examiners' reports, and though marijuana is mentioned, it is usually in combination with alcohol or other drugs. Marijuana alone has not been shown to cause an overdose death.Source: National Academy Press, 1999), available on the web at http://www.nap.edu/html/marimed/; and US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, "In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition" (Docket #86-22), September 6, 1988, p. 57.

10. The Centers for Disease Control reported that in 2003, HIV disease was the 22nd leading cause of death in the US for whites, the 9th leading cause of death for blacks, and the 13th leading cause of death for Hispanics.Source: Heron, Melonie P., PhD, Smith, Betty L., BsED, Division of Vital Statistics, "Deaths: Leading Causes for 2003," National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 55, No. 10 (Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, CDC, March 15, 2007), p. 10, Table E, and p. 12, Table F.